


to warm the universe

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: And make one of them a Hunter and thus well versed in wilderness survival, Snowed-in trope but make it friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: In between the research on Io and the expedition to Europa is a quiet, tense moment, for Eris to re-center with herself and with Kass.
Relationships: Eris Morn & Original Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	to warm the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bioluminesce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/gifts).



> A secret santa fic exchange gift for Nem!

With the seed gone there is little more to do on Io, and the pyramids loom ever closer. Eris prolongs their departure as long as she can, for her and Kass alike. Zavala calls once, twice. The third vanguard transmission is Ikora, and she impresses enough gravity on them to draw them back into orbit. An interdict is falling on all but a handful of locations, and Eris feels it like a curtain closing.

Ikora has questions for her and for Kass upon their return, yes. But they are exhausted much too soon, and the Tower has a haze of apprehension like a marine layer. It curls around Eris more than the walls of her little room do. She sometimes thinks of bending the fear and dread into a spell but has no purpose for it, and no target to hurl it at. There is a resonance in her gut that she knows like a phantom organ—the desire to move, to hunt, to claw apart a cord one thread at a time until the knot unravels simply because there is nothing left to tie.

This is why Eris volunteers a little too quickly when Ikora recommends a site in Siberia to investigate. An old hive seeder that is trivial, beneath her, and far from her current focus. There are no new secrets for her to find, and little left of Crota to rend, but perhaps there is material to scavenge. She suspects the fabricated mission is a compromise; something on Earth, close to home, but something to chase nonetheless. The Vanguard has been doing the same for other hunters. Requests for salvage from this continent have tripled, and local scout patrol routes are receiving automatic approval.

She thinks also, privately, that this is a chance to equip herself for cold under the guise of a sanctioned mission. Europa beckons, gently, and when she goes—if she goes—she will need to be prepared. She finds new boots, a scarf, a properly lined coat.

When it is time to leave, Kass joins her, for reasons of her own. Eris is grateful for the familiar ship and the company, and is sure Kass knows.

The flight is easy until the tundra stretches beneath them, wild and barren. The wind flowing through the valley buffets the wings, and the ship bucks as Kass takes it down for landing. 

When the ramp opens Eris squints all of her eyes against the white blur of frigid nothing, kicked up by the engines and heat foils. Kass tightens the collar of her robes against the pelting of snow, and they both hurry down so the ship may go, and leave them to their trek. Even as it lifts away, the wind endures, and the cold does not lessen. She did not expect it to, she’d camped in Siberia as a Hunter, long ago. The cold never lessens. 

The field ahead is flat as can be expected, the wind blows serpentine dunes both uniform and organic at once. The seeder’s spire breaks the plain like an oddly-shaped pine. Everything else exists in monochrome here, the open plain is the most crisp and blinding white imaginable and Eris struggles to decipher gullies from snowbanks. In contrast are the mountains, black but for the alabaster furrows where snow collects. The sky is a nasty grey, an oppressive threat. It feels like a mournful warning. 

“Is there a storm?” Eris asks, tilting her face up for only a moment, before the wind cuts down her scarf and she ducks her head to close the gap again.

“Requested weather scans, never got an answer.“ Kass replies. Eris understands. Huge swaths of the City’s satellite network went down with Rasputin, and the current grid is taxed with transmat requests and comms. They will have to make do.

The walk to their destination is a miserable slog through dense, knee-high snow. The seeder looms but never seems to get closer. It is only when Eris puts her head down and trudges for many long minutes that it feels as though progress is made. The wind toys with them and their robes, shifts direction so that any posture they take to guard against it becomes a wasted effort in minutes. Eris jams her hands in her armpits and keeps her breaths deep and long, so they don’t cloud her vision.

It is a blessing to reach the mouth of the seeder, and the darkness within is quiet and near-welcoming. The snow that pours into what would be a stairwell is untracked and smooth, likely a good sign. Icicles encrust the faint lights, making this interior even dimmer than most. The sounds of their boots crunching through the frosty top layer is louder than expected within the windbreak. It echoes in the interior as Eris puts a hand on the wall and begins to pick their way down into the tunnels below.

The further they descend the warmer the air becomes, as the earth embraces them. There is frost, still, but compared to the outside it is nearly comfortable. There are halls here that were once home to a brood, but most doors are open and ice has encrusted their frames. Something hums below but it is quiet, near dormant, and the whole place has an air of abandonment. Emboldened by one another and a lack of resistance, they press on.

Eris’s thoughts are on Europa; she is imagining finding pyramids buried in ice like immense fossils, their geometry contorting in glacial fractals.

Kass’s thoughts are on her eye. Eris can tell when she catches the Guardian lift a hand to her left side, or sees her turn her head fully to take in the frozen contents of an alcove.

This is why, then, they are caught by surprise. Eris opens a lock into a room that hisses moisture laden air, much warmer than the chamber they were in previously. And as the temperature equalizes to something still frigid, the occupants screech in protest. Rows and rows of thrall in varying stages of growth, congregating in what must be a feeding hall. At once, they all turn towards the intruders. 

Kass lights herself on fire and begins to burn. Eris turns and begins to run.

It is not that many, but it is enough to pose a threat, and as Kass’s flames settle there arises a singing, coming from chambers further below. 

If she were alone she would first mask her scent, climb into a hollow in the rock, shelter till the thralls lose her. Creep slowly deeper, obscure her presence with spells, kill the knights with blows from behind. Find the broodmother at the heart of her nest, chain her, destroy the tithing bonds, cut her life out and teleport far away before her acolytes heed her dying screams…

But Kass has a Ghost, and Kass is full of Light, and the many Thrall are so very hungry. They cannot stay here.

And the cold is their friend now, the cold that grows more persistent as they climb. Eris’s body protests at being exposed to it again, longs for the warmth of earth and stone. But the instinct of the fragile thrall is even stronger, and the hunting screams fade to chittering after a point.

When they emerge from the maw, it is into something between light and dark. The storm clouds block the sun, pull the world dimmer and dimmer. But the snowflakes refract with crystalline purity, making everything glow a homogenous off-grey, like a thick bank of fog that happens to sting where it strikes skin. And it is uniform in all directions, the seeder blocks a portion of the wailing wind, creating one eddy of visibility. But beyond it is whiteout. Kass hesitates at its edge, pulling up the collar of her coat once more.

The part of Eris that was and will always be a Hunter stirs, even before Kass calls to the wind what they both know. “The ship can’t land in this.”

“We need shelter.” Eris says, looks once more at the burrow behind them, the familiarity of brood tunnels and the embracing warmth of being deep within rock and dirt. But if they linger they are dangling Kass’s Light like a lure, and eventually the hive’s hunger will outweigh the chill. “We cannot stay here.”

They landed in a valley. The mountains are their best hope. Eris hunches her shoulders around her neck, sinking her nose further below her face mask, and steps into the blizzard. Kass follows, leaning into the wind, risks pressing her shoulder into Eris’s. It is acceptable, in this instance. Through contact they will not be separated. 

The squall buffets, and though she aimed for what she remembered to be the closest valley wall, she has nothing to orient herself with. A gnawing fear tells her that her sense of direction is marred by this lack of landmarks, tells her that if her steps are not true she could lead them in a wide arc or worse—in circles. But she has always been hard of sight and pushes this terror down. One boot in front of the other, keep footprints parallel, and eventually they will make it somewhere, and somewhere is better than here. The wind is herding them towards the side they want to reach anyway. 

The only comfort to the unending barrage is the knowledge that the wake they leave is being filled behind them, windswept powder consuming the path. The Hive cannot follow them out here.

There comes a point where Eris knows they can go no further. They have found no rock or cliff yet, and it is time to make do. The instincts of mortal and Hunter and thrall alike rise in her throat, pressing her to dive down beneath the wind and snow. So she crests a dune and halts, calls above the storm. “Be a windbreak while I dig! Hold fast, it will not be long!”

Kass is expressionless behind her helmet, but nods emphatically, and tries to broaden her stance. Eris pulls a curve of chiton from her belt, takes it like a simple trowel and begins to burrow. The wind lifts what snow she unsettles and sucks it away in the gale. At least she will not have to worry about it falling back into their hollow.

She goes for depth, not width, first. Knows that while exertion is keeping her warm and moving, Kass is standing still and bleeding her body heat into the storm. As soon as it is a few feet deep she beckons her companion in with her. Kass slithers down, pressing herself against one side, huddled below the roaring winds above. Even in this cramped hole, she gives Eris what space she can.

“Deeper?” she asks, and Eris nods, pausing for breath.

“Deeper. We need the foundation.” 

Kass looks helplessly at the engulfing snow for a moment, the prospect of digging by hand daunting. But she recovers, reaches down to un-buckle a shin guard from her boot to use as her own makeshift scoop, and joins in.

It is silent, diligent work and they fall into it, even as it becomes a challenge to heft the snow over the lip of the pit, and clumps begin to fall back on their heads. The harshness of the landscape is in their fortune, for once, as the snow here is old and packed by the weight of what is above it. The deeper they get the stronger the base, and the better for caving. Five feet reveals no dirt, no bottom to the snow layer. Nor does six, nor seven. Down here it is already warmer and quieter, but the instinct to burrow persists.

Finally it is enough, and their work has produced a frosty cliff, which Eris flattens with long strokes to form a delicate canvas. She draws her knife, and carves the first chunks of the cave out in wedges. The shapes are like runes, a spell for survival. The blocks crumble away and Kass sweeps them aside, stomps them down into the ground beneath their feet. Once the opening is large enough to crawl into, Eris turns from carving to sintering, steadily packingthe snow tight and firm above, around, below.

The result is a tunnel and a trough to enter through, and a low ledge to climb atop to keep away from the wind worming it’s way down their hole. Eris enters first, pulls herself onto the shelf, and watches Kass’s shadow fill the opening, before she squeezes her way in as well. They pant together, audible now in this quiet place they have carved for themselves. Kass slumps shoulder and helmet into the wall, and the snow dents slightly to cradle her. 

“How long until Ikora worries?” she asks. The snow eats her words in a different way than the wind, allows them to be heard and then swallows any echo in frigid silence.

“Days,” Eris says, sensibly. “We will do best if we do not expect anyone to come for us.”

There is a lapse to silence that speaks volumes. The product of the escalating pressure of the recent months, like layers and layers of snowflakes compacting into ice.

“It will not be our end,” Eris says.

“Of course not,” is Kass’s reply. “And we are not alone.”

Eris no longer knows for certain where the conversation has gone, if it remains inside this temporary shelter or expands to the City, the planet, the system. 

Europa. 

So she takes it somewhere familiar, to old burrows and hidey-holes. Worms her hands deeper into her armpits and braces against the chill. “The moon was never this cold.” 

“Maybe I can help,” Kass offers. She cups her hands in front of her and summons solar there, a burning handful of fire. It draws dancing lights on the snow around them, bouncing off every surface it can manage like Dawning lights. It has been a long time since Eris spent a Dawning in the tower, but the glitter is difficult to forget. Eva ensures that. 

It is bright, and Eris averts her eyes while Kass dampens it down to something more like a candleflame. It does seem to radiate heat, but she almost feels that the warmth could be imagined, her mind yearning for comfort. She curls herself up tighter, pulling knees to her chest. There is little to do now but wait in silence.

At some point Eris sleeps; she does not realize it until she feels herself wake. The light has changed. It is a darker, deeper blue in the shadowed divots in the walls, like pockmarks of lunar regolith. She could expect wormspore in the depths of one of these cracks. The storm outside still howls, and the solar Light through Kass’s fingers still flickers.

“How long?” she mumbles.

“Seven hours,” Kass reports, her voice soft and trancelike.

“Did you sleep?” Eris asks, knowing the answer. It is plain in the way Kass’s head lolls with her breaths, the way her chest rises and the way her chin lifts at the sound of her voice.

“I needed to be awake to focus,” she says, as explanation.

“We will not freeze. Hunters have made caves like these for centuries.”

“I do not want you to be cold if there is something I can do about it.” The Light flickers a bit stronger: she is coming back from the edge of dozing off. “And there is.”

“The cave will do its job, and the snow will bleed most of the heat,” Eris chides, a staunch believer in burrows. “Do not waste your energy trying to warm the universe.”

“Well, the universe includes you,” Kass reminds.

It is one of those things that is said offhanded, but pierces through Eris’s layers faster than the spikes of cold when she shifts her posture. Had she grown so used to Kass’s presence that she had forgotten its shape, its unique comfort carved from trust and respect? The list of people she would wish to be trapped in a snow cave with is too short to be worth writing. But here is a snow cave, there is Kass.

And Eris thinks she prefers this to being alone.

She hauls herself up, and her skin protests as chill seeps into the places where her body was pressed against itself. All this does is reinforce the decision she has come to, as she crawls awkwardly across their cramped shelter to sit beside Kass. Nearer to the Light, nearer to the warmth. From this distance, it does make a difference.

Kass watches her from beneath an impassive helmet, looks uncertain if she should lean away and give Eris space. Kass has always given her enough berth to be comfortable, the distance a dance they have rehearsed over many years. And now Eris redefines it for the moment, places her hands on top of Kass’s. And for the first time since stepping off the ship, her fingers begin to warm towards a comfortable temperature.

There is another stretch of silence, and the Light simmers. She can feel it softening, and watches Kass’s head begin to list forward again. The Guardian comes back with an inhale and jerk of her chin. She focuses on her breaths to keep awake, and then she begins to hum.

It is not much at first, just noise to keep awake. She does not recognize the tunes, as they grow into something more coherent. But they are doing their job, Eris can feel the light grow stronger as her focus does.

“Sun-singing?” she murmurs. Kass chuckles in the back of her throat.

 _Not alone_. Eris thinks, and pulls memories from the depths of her mind, turns them to hums, to words. Hunter chants, not-quite songs, favorites of Sai and others she had run with. Tales of camps and trails and long hunts, of ahamkara and warlords and Kells. She recites them like nursery rhymes—stumbling on occasion and restarting a verse to insert a line temporarily forgotten, jostled free by the memory of the telling. Kass listens with steady breathing and steady warmth.

She chants until her voice is hoarse, and when she trails off there is a stillness that hangs for a long time. Eris thinks at first it is a reverence for what was, for touching the past and spinning it into something new, like the weight after a spell. But the quiet is insistent, deafening, and eventually it dawns on her that the wind is gone, they had grown so accustomed to it that it’s absence is a stranger. They exchange a glance, recognizing simultaneously what this means.

“Transmat linked,” Kass says. “The ship can land.”

Eris’s noise of acknowledgement is like a grunt. She draws herself to sit up, pulling away from Kass and lamenting the cold that fills the gap where they touched. The cave has taken on a bright blue aura, as light from outside filters in and bounces off a trillion tiny ice crystals.

They exit the burrow into a stillness more vast than the stillness they left, but unbroken all the same. The sky above is blue leaning to yellow at the horizon, leftover color from a lingering dawn. The sun soaks into her dark clothes and it is like Kass’s Light again.

The whine of the jumpship’s engines grow louder, and soon it is landing before them, kicking up a much more tolerable gale. Eris turns to see the seeder, further back than she expected but still a bit close for comfort. She remembers the untracked entryway, and wonders now if their footprints have been filled in, if others had come before them and had the evidence of their passing wiped in the same way.

She has no desire to return to it. There are more important things to do.

The ship’s ramp lowers, and Eris moves with stalwart insistence to the cockpit, sits down and straps into the pilot’s chair. It has been a long time since she flew a ship, since Cayde stole hers, but she has not forgotten. Kass stops in the doorway, but relents, and finds somewhere in the back to rest. 

While she sleeps, Eris returns her favor. Takes the controls and turns them towards the sun. The cockpit window polarizes to protect her from the glare, but it feels warm all the same. 

She stays awake, to focus, and fly them home.


End file.
